Why another browser workspace?
Every browser already gives you two ways to hold on to a page: the tab you have open right now, and the bookmark you saved for later. In practice they end up serving different purposes. An open tab is immediate context โ the thing you're reading, the ticket you're working, the five references you pulled up for a comparison โ and it disappears the moment the browser closes it, whether you meant to lose it or not. A bookmark is durable context โ the page you decided was worth keeping โ but it usually lives in a flat, unsorted list that most people stop opening within a week of saving anything to it. Most tools pick a side: a tab manager that only manages tabs, or a bookmark manager that only manages bookmarks. TabSlate starts from the idea that both belong in the same workspace, because the way you actually work moves between them constantly.
Capture, organize, return
TabSlate replaces your browser's new-tab page with a dashboard built around workspaces and collections. A workspace is the top-level container for a project or area of your life โ only one is active at a time, and everything else in the dashboard scopes itself to whichever one you're in. Inside a workspace, collections group your bookmarks; every workspace starts with a Default collection so there's always somewhere to save something, and you add more as your organization needs grow.
The Tabs view sits right alongside your bookmarks, showing every tab and Chrome tab group actually open in the browser right now โ a live mirror of browser state, not something TabSlate is holding onto for you. When a Chrome tab group is worth keeping around after you close it, Save as Group turns it into a saved group: a reusable snapshot of that group's tabs, name, and color that you can reopen later even after the live tabs and the original Chrome group are gone. Bookmarks and saved groups solve different problems โ a bookmark is a page, a saved group is a whole set of tabs you want back โ and TabSlate keeps both a drag away from whatever you have open.
Finding things again works the same way whether you're looking for something open or something saved: type into the search box and TabSlate checks your open tabs, then your bookmarks (including archived ones), before falling back to a web search. And when something has outlived its usefulness, Archive gets it out of your active view without deleting it, while Trash holds anything you've deleted until you either restore it or empty it for good.
Local first, synchronization by choice
None of the above needs an account. The first time TabSlate has nothing saved on a device, it creates a guest workspace automatically, and guest use is the full dashboard โ nothing is hidden or read-only while you're using it without signing in. Everything you create as a guest stays local to that browser until you connect a verified account, at which point TabSlate merges it in and starts keeping it in sync.
If and when you do want sync, you get to choose who operates the server it talks to. TabSlate Server is the same Go backend that powers our official cloud service, released separately as free software under AGPL-3.0, so you can run it yourself instead of using a service we operate. The extension doesn't behave differently depending on which one it's pointed at โ the same sync API, the same dashboard, the same features. What differs is who's responsible for keeping the server running, and that's a trade worth making deliberately rather than by default.
Where TabSlate is going
This post ships alongside two things landing on the same site for the first time: full documentation, and this blog. Both now live with the product itself instead of scattered across a wiki or a GitHub README, which means the day-to-day workflows above โ and the self-hosting path that goes with them โ have a real home to grow into as TabSlate does. Details of the official paid hosted service are intentionally not part of this post; that side of the product isn't finalized yet, and we'd rather say nothing than say something we'd need to walk back.
Get started
If you haven't installed TabSlate yet, Install TabSlate covers every supported browser, and Quick Start walks through your first workspace, your first bookmark, and your first saved group. TabSlate is open source โ the extension's code is on GitHub if you want to read it, build it yourself, or file an issue. And if self-hosting is the right fit for how you work, Self-hosting is where to start.